Inner world of foster care : an in-depth exploration (original) (raw)
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Foster care: Core problems and intervention strategies
Children and Youth Services Review, 1981
Despite consensus that the foster care system can improve service delivery to the children entrusted to it, there is less agreement on appropriate targets for change and intervention strategies. It is argued that one of two formulations of the core problem expressed by the client group receiving foster care services are implicit in the remaining three core problems identified as targets for change in the literature. Consequences of the implicit selection of either formulation and related strategies is presented. The author wishes to express appreciation for their helpful comments on-earlier drafts of this article to the following colleagues: Alfred Kadushin, Sharon Berlin, Lynn Wikler and students: Linda Moore, and Joan Dobrof. The journal reviewers were exceptionally helpful in aiding me to develop more fully the ideas in the article. 53706.
The Foster Care Research Project: Summary and Analysis
The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 1988
This paper analyzes and summarizes five more detailed papers describing the Foster Care Research Project (F.C.R.P.). This compared two (individual and group) models of foster care as to their effects on foster parent satisfaction, placement breakdowns and several indices of children's adjustment in care. The group model is described and contrasted with other “extended family” models, and the results of the project, which were mixed, are summarized. A critique of the experimental design suggests why clinical gains noted in the children were not borne out experimentally. Following a clinician's analysis of the process by which the group model operated (illustrated by clinical vignettes), the paper ends by describing the content and process of two support groups for the natural children of the foster parents.
Her name is Jazzy. She is a beautiful 17-year-old with shiny brown hair and big brown eyes. Her contagious laughter is complemented by the deep dimples on her cheeks. She loves to cheer for the football team at her high school and go to the movies with her friends on the weekends. What many people do not know about Jazzy is that her biological mother was a prostitute. Jazzy was conceived while her mother was with one of her "clients." Soon after Jazzy's birth, her mother was arrested and taken to prison for her crimes as a prostitute. Jazzy was left to live with her half siblings and the man whom she shared a last name with because her mother had no idea who her real father was. Jazzy does not like to talk about the things that happened in that home. She gets flashbacks every once in a while of the horrors of living there, but for the most part she has tried to forget. The only thing she allows herself to remember is the time she spent with her siblings. They were there for each other. But when the police discovered that Jazzy's step-father was not a suitable caretaker for her or the other children, they took the children away from him and into the foster care system. Is the foster care system the best solution for children like these? Does the system improve the lives of these children or does it complicate and destroy their lives even further? By exploring what the foster care system is, identifying problems within the system, examining solutions that have been attempted in the past, and establishing how the problems need to be addressed now, this essay will demonstrate that the foster care system has many areas in need of improvement in regards to its treatment of children and effectiveness with finding permanent homes and bettering the lives of not just children, but family units as a whole.
Foster carers' perspectives : the dilemmas of loving the bureaucratised child
2002
A copy may be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. No quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. You must obtain permission for any other use of this thesis. Copies of this thesis may not be sold or offered to anyone in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright owner(s). When referring to this work, the full bibliographic details must be given as follows: Nutt, L. M. (2002). Foster carers' perspectives: the dilemmas of loving the bureaucratised child. PhD thesis. Oxford Brookes University. Foster carers' perspectives: the dilemmas of loving the bureaucratised child.
Entering foster care: Foster children's accounts* 1
Children and Youth Services Review, 1981
This paper examines children's accounts of the events leading up to their entry into foster care. Using C. Wright Mills' concept of vocabularies of motives, these accounts are treated as rationales with which informants explain deviant living arrangements to representatives of the dominant culture. The paper distinguishes between accounts which describe how informants were drawn into foster care unwillingly and those in which they reported that they or their parents chose to use foster care to solve family problems. In the latter set of accounts, informants described how family members used foster care to reinforce a traditional family division of labor. Fathers relied on foster care because they co&d not take responsibility for housework and childcare; mothers for help in controlling and disciplining their children, and teenagers for assistance in expanding their opportunities and their freedom from parental control. These accounts reveal more about shared assumptions and understandings surrounding the concept of "normal" family relations than they do about the "real reasons" for the status of foster children.
Journal of Child and Family Studies, 2010
"We sought to provide a new framework for understanding the training and ongoing support of foster parents. The experiences of authorized foster parents were viewed in the context of an experiment, whereby foster parents entered an out-of-home care placement with preconceived ideas and expectations of what the provision of care would be like. We have investigated the experience of foster care from the perspective of the foster parent who tests expectations of providing care as one might conduct any experiment. Focus group discussion yielded five global domains of foster care experience: birth family, motivation, agency influences, relationship impacts, and attachment. Foster carers commonly described these domains as central to the overall experience of providing foster care. Furthermore, specific experiences within each domain were seen to either encourage or discourage the further provision of foster care. Individual interviews regarding the practical experiences related to these domains uncovered struggles of foster parents who sought to understand their role identity as a ‘‘foster parent’’, and their self identity as a ‘‘mother’’. We discuss implications arising from the experience of these domains of care and their related struggles."
Qualitative studies of the lived experiences of being in foster care: A scoping review protocol
BMJ Open, 2023
The aim of this scoping review is to provide an overview of the existing qualitative research concerning the lived experiences of children and young people currently in foster care. Introduction Lived experience of foster care is an area of limited research. Studies tend to focus on foster caregiver retention rates, education performance outcomes, evaluations and policy development. Although these studies are important, they provide little insight into the everyday lives of those currently in foster care, which is likely to influence these previous areas of research. Methods and analysis The scoping review will be guided by Arksey and O'Malley's approach to scoping studies. A systematic database search of PubMed, CINAHL and PsycINFO will be conducted followed by a systematic chain search of referenced and referencing literature. Englishlanguage peer-reviewed qualitative studies of children and young people currently in foster care will be included. We will exclude studies linked to transitioning out of foster care and studies with samples mixed with other types of out-of-home care. Mixed-methods studies will be excluded in addition to programme, treatment or policy evaluations. Following removal of duplicates, titles and abstracts will be screened, followed by a full-text review. Two researchers will independently screen references against inclusion and exclusion criteria using Covidence software. The quality of the included studies will be assessed by two independent reviewers using the appropriate Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklist. Ethics and dissemination Information gathered in this research will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at national and international conferences relevant to foster care services and quality improvement. Reports will be disseminated to relevant foster care agencies, where relevant. Ethical approval and informed consent are not required as this protocol is a review of existing literature. Findings from the included studies will be charted and summarised thematically in a separate manuscript.